пятница, 7 сентября 2018 г.

Some Facts About The Ojibwe Language

By Ryan Harris


For those who are familiar with American and Canadian history, they will probably be familiar with the Ojibwe people who live around Canada up to Montana and Michigan. They were known for the ancient language which was the Ojibwe language, now considered a very rare dialect because not many of the younger generation speak it. If one is interested in dialects and culture, check out these facts.

Now, just to give an idea, this race of people are also known as the Anishinaabemowin or the Ojibway. As mentioned above, they settle in various places through Canada up until the US borders. They live near the Great Lakes making that area their main settlement or home town. Their dialect is known as the Central Algonquian language, previously used by all tribes in that area.

While it was previously used by many, it is now one of the most endangered languages in the state of Minnesota. In fact, UNESCO adds it to the Atlas of Worlds Languages in Danger list as they quote that it is only now spoken by the grandparents generation. Parents may understand it but they hardly practice it anymore and do not speak it to their children or their own grandchildren.

Of course, there have been organizations who want to help preserve the dialect by making schools in states like Michigan and Minnesota. The whole aim of these schools is to ensure that that those who have Ojibway heritage, or those that do not for that matter, learn to read and write it. In fact, the Ojibway Peoples Dictionary was created to aid in these types of efforts.

Now, to know about the dialect a bit, one has to know what kind of alphabet it uses. It makes use of what is known as a double vowel system wherein two letters combine with each other to act as a single sound. It is also pretty interesting to know that there is an apostrophe somewhere in the alphabet which is symbolizing of a sort of stop.

For those who do not know about the alphabet yet, there are some letters straight from the English alphabet but others are not. The ones from the English alphabet include most letters in the alphabet while some other added ones include aa, ee, ii, oo, ch, sh, and zh. As mentioned above, the ones that have two letters in them act as a single unit letter to make a completely different sound than a single letter unit.

Aside from the standard alphabet, there is also the nasal vowels. These are iinh, eenh, oonh, and aanh. As the name states, these are the ones that have a nasal sound when spoken.

Basically, these are some things to know about the Ojibway dialect. While it is about to be endangered, many people are trying to bring it back. This is to ensure the preservation of the culture of the people who used to live along the Great Lake area.




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